


Salvation

by trepidatingboarfetus



Category: Grand Theft Auto Series (Video Games), Grand Theft Auto V
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:27:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26578312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trepidatingboarfetus/pseuds/trepidatingboarfetus
Summary: Plenty keeps Michael up at night and has for years. His salvation may start with a simple phone call.
Relationships: Michael De Santa/Trevor Philips
Comments: 4
Kudos: 44





	Salvation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thenomansland](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thenomansland/gifts).



> The start to this literally came from my husband playing "Need You Now" by Lady A (or whatever they call themselves these days), and I am really not a huge country fan unless it's like Johnny Cash or old school gritty stuff, but this song has always stuck with me for a certain reason, and when he played it, I just imagined Trevor screaming this into the phone at Michael from that one redneck dive one drunken night, and then it progressed into something else that could even turn into maybe something more when I have extra time to work on it after Toxicity and the fanzine. Or maybe stand alone, I don't know. It was meant to be short and sweet. Either way, I like it, and I wanted to leave it for my friend who is dear to me. <3

Michael was floating somewhere between the cusp of dream and the sliver of wakefulness, where his mind usually placed him. He’d fought this battle long and hard for years, especially in the ones following Ludendorff, often because he had battled internally with himself after that mess of fucking shit. He’d never quite forgiven himself for how miserably that had all gone down, and he had a feeling he never fully would. And someone else would never let him live it down either. 

It’s not like he didn’t _want_ sleep, didn’t chase each fucking dream. God knew he was happier in them. His marriage wasn’t exactly a failure yet. His kids were forever young and idolized him, didn’t swear back at him or try to drug the ever-loving shit out of him. There was a never-ending supply of heists to run for him and his crew, and he felt like a fucking king in them.

And Trevor was next to him, young, not too thin and scarred from the rampant drug abuse that would later plague him, and a head full of long hair that hadn’t faded away with age, time, and stress yet. Looking every bit as beautiful as he remembered him in those days. He yearned to reach out, grab him, and never let go, but as usual, the minute he would, everything would erase into oblivion and repeat the next night. It was a sick, sad cycle that haunted him time and time again. Sometimes he felt that his answers weren’t at the end of his shot glass but at the end of his pistol chamber. 

And sometimes he had dreams where he was back in high school, but he’d learned to control his fucking temper this time around, and he hadn’t torn his ACL, so his career hadn’t had to end, but in these dreams, Lester was some nerdy kid he knew who did his homework and did other shit for him on the side, Mandy was a cheerleader he was going steady with, Frank played slot receiver while Lamar was a tight end, and then there was this wily new Canadian punk who played wideout and thought he could do whatever the fuck he wanted….

Like pushing the team captain against the lockers when no one else was around and fondling him in places that made him sweat easily. 

So Michael was having one of those again, and he could feel the pull of Trevor’s arms around him, hugging him closely, feel as one hand drooped languidly towards the crack of his cheeks, and just as things were starting to get so achingly good, something that sounded like an alarm started going off. 

Smoke was billowing into the room, filling it like storm clouds, causing Michael to go into a coughing fit, and somewhere to his right, Mandy’s voice called out that he needed to do something...what was it?

Trevor disappeared so suddenly, it’s like he was never there, and he felt saddened by the lack of his warmth surrounding him, but Mandy’s voice was getting louder and more urgent by the minute. What did he need to do again? Get out? Was something on fire?

Then someone was hitting his fucking arm with a book. “Will you get the hell up! Your phone has been going off like crazy since about three in the damn morning, and I can’t take any fucking more, Michael! We all know who it is anyway, so answer it while I go tell Jimmy to lay off his bong because he’s laying the smoke on a little thick for everyone!” Amanda yelled next to him while yanking herself up off the bed angrily. 

She took her book with her so either she was prepared to beat Jimmy with it next or she was mad at everyone and planned to stay up reading for a while. Probably a bit of both, he sighed as he listened to her shout at their son who was, in turn, whining back at his mother. Michael pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to clear the crust from his eyes as he squinted at the time on the alarm clock.

The phone sounded again.

“Will you answer that goddamn phone already, Michael!!” Amanda’s voice called from the stairs, and he tried to pretend it was the loving one he heard in his dreams, but they were probably beyond that at this point, so he snorted at his own dumb thoughts.

As his phone rang again, he noticed the time blinking back at him in huge glaring red numbers: 3:46. Jesus, what the fuck could Trevor want at this hour of the fucking morning? Didn’t he know that sane people _tried_ to sleep at this hour?

He shook his head as he answered the phone before Amanda could scream up the stairs again or before his kids could join in the shouting match. “Do you know what the fuck time it is--”

Horrible loud country music hit him straight in the ear, along with ungodly caterwauling. He couldn’t make it out at first but could clearly tell it was Trevor’s voice, but what the hell he was doing was beyond him at first because a lot of it sounded like a mixture of drunken singing, some sounded like crying, and little sounded like pain. 

“Reachin’ for the fuckin’ phone ‘cause I can’t fuckin’ fight it anymore,” came a strangled sob on the other end.

“T?” He pushed himself up on his elbow. What was this crazy fuck doing? Jesus, had he really gotten drunk at some dive and decided to call him up and raise him from some much-needed rest and a good goddamn dream just for _this_?

“And I wonder if I ever crossed your mind?” Trevor sang sadly into the phone, hiccuping and burping. “For me, it happened all the fucking time, Mikey.” He paused to snort back what Michael could only guess was snot and tears and added, “And it still does.”

“T….” OK, now his heart was starting to twist in all sorts of odd angles. He’d never meant to hurt him, God _knows_ he’d never meant to hurt him, to make him like this.

But Michael felt he was bound for Hell for sure for all the things he’d done to Trevor, just like everyone else who’d done things to Trevor in his life to make him such a miserable fucking individual.

“It’s a quarter after something, I’m all alone, and I need you now,” Trevor whispered painfully into the phone as if it were a sick secret between just the two of them. “Said I wouldn’t call, but I lost all control, and I need you now,” he sang again, starting to sob uncontrollably, “and I don’t know how I can do without you, Mikey.” The line started to go silent, and Michael almost started to think he’d fallen asleep or hung up on him, but he heard little sniffles and sounds like Trevor was trying to get his crying under control. “Oh fuck, I’m drunk,” he finally said softly over the line after a few minutes.

Amanda could never begin to understand the nightmares that had haunted him for years. He’d tried to permanently silence his best friend, the very first person he’d ever really loved. He’d pushed him away no matter how many times Trevor had pulled back because inside Michael had felt what they’d had wasn’t right, and for what? For a church he no longer attended? For parents he no longer kept in contact with? Sure, he believed in the big guy upstairs, but all thieves did at the end of the day because you have to pray to something, and God obviously didn’t hate him that much. 

Or maybe He did. He had problems getting it up now unless certain old lanky balding friends were involved in his ministrations, and he couldn’t sleep because his dreams were filled with the man. Either of how he’d screwed him up so badly or how much he wanted him. And before he’d popped back into their lives, for years he’d been tortured with watching him run away again and again, never seeing him, and worry that he had died somewhere in a gutter long ago.

No amount of money or time or affection could even begin to fix his fuck up where Trevor was concerned. 

Hearing T sing to him over the phone was tearing his heart into bits. 

“I’m coming to get you,” Michael told him as he sat up in bed, reaching for his wallet and keys. 

“No, no, _no_ ,” Trevor mumbled, “I can call Frankie or get a cab. Frankie owns the goddamn cab company anyway, so it’ll be free. Don’t worry your wife’s pretty little head off. Or yours. I’ll be fine. I just drank too much again. This is why I should stick to meth, goddammit. Better for my health.”

Michael tried to be patient, he really did, but sometimes Trevor’s stubbornness about receiving help got on his last fucking nerve. He ground his hand down his face in frustration and bit his lip. “Look, _you_ called _me_ , and I’m wide fucking awake now. Amanda’s awake and pretty pissed off. Do you _think_ I want to be around here right now?” After blowing out a breath and trying to find his center mentally and all that shit to calm down, he tried again, “T, look...I _want_ to come get you, OK?”

“You can’t, Mikey,” came the strangled reply. “If you do, you’re not coming home. Not today. Maybe not for a while.”

“What?? Look, this isn’t like before where people are out for my blood. I can’t just come and stay like we’re kids for a sleepover. Amanda and I are trying to make this shit work, even if it _is_ dysfunctional as fuck.” He sighed. “I love you, T, and I want to help you, but I don’t know how.” He landed back against the headboard again with a thump. “It’s killing me because I want to help you. I can’t sleep at night. Help me to help you, for fuck’s sake.”

Trevor laughed, but there was no humor in it. “It’s killing _you_? What the fuck do you think it feels like to be _me_??” he shouted into the phone. “What do you think it’s like to wake up every morning and know you’ll be alone for the rest of your fucking pathetic existence, _Mikey_??” And then the jagged crying came again. “What do you think it was like to be without you, all of those fucking years I thought you were dead?” he cried softly. “It hurt just to wake up. So many times I looked in the goddamn mirror and just wanted to break it and cut my own throat, but I was too chickenshit.” The line went silent for a few minutes with neither one daring to breathe. “Maybe we’d both be better off if I hadn’t been.”

“Don’t you _ever_ fucking say that, do you hear me?” Michael hissed into the phone. He wasn’t a crying man, had rarely cried in his whole damn life thanks to the upbringing of his very strict Catholic father, but just hearing the pain in Trevor’s voice and that admission -- an admission that he knew damn well had probably occurred more than once over the time they’d been apart...something inside of him finally welled up, and a dam was broken. Fat salty tears streamed down his cheeks as he muttered into the phone, “Don’t you _ever_ think about that shit again. For years I dreamed you were dead, you...you just have no fucking _clue_ the amount of shit that’s gone through my mind for nine fucking years, T. I wasn’t talking out of my ass when I said I _missed_ you. Didn’t you fucking _hear_ me?? _I MISSED YOU_.” 

“ _THEN WHY DON’T YOU MISS ME NOW_??” came the distressing response from the other end. 

Michael didn’t have a good answer. Working on shit with Amanda? Like she would give two shits that he was out with Trevor. As long as he wasn’t balls deep in a woman making her look stupid, she didn’t care. And didn’t she still have a fucking Hushmush profile still up??

Finally, he huffed, “I _do_ miss you right now. I was just dreaming about you, actually.” The other line was quiet for so long, Michael thought it was dead again until he knew he heard breathing. “Trevor? You’d better not be beating off.”

“So fucking what? I’m in the bathroom. Tell me more about this dream,” Trevor’s voice came over the line smoothly and an octave richer. 

Michael laughed as he stretched and stood up to dress. “OK, OK. I’ll tell you on the way to pick you up. Where the fuck are you?” 

He’d given everyone else so much of his life. He felt he owed Trevor at least the same in return for what he had spared Michael without being asked to do so. He had so much to make up to his beloved old friend, and a few hours or days here and there couldn’t even hope to repay nine years of agonizing Hell, but it was some sort of start.


End file.
